September–November 1939: Elser works thirty to thirty-five nights on the gallery of the Bürgerbräu to prepare the column above the lectern for the installation of the bomb. During the day, he works on the design of the device. He has the necessary component parts produced in various workshops.
November 1, 1939: Plants the device in the hollowed-out cavity in the column.
November 2, 1939: Plants the remaining gunpowder, explosive cartridges, blasting caps, and rifle ammunition in the hollow in the column.
November 5, 1939: Participates in a dance in the Bürgerbräu. Afterward, he finishes the installation and setting of the clocks for detonation on November 8, 1939, at 9:20 PM.
November 6, 1939: Visits his sister in Stuttgart in order to leave his belongings with her.
November 7, 1939: Travels to Munich; inspects the explosive chambers and the clock mechanism.
November 8, 1939: Travels to Konstarz.
8:45 PM: Arrest in the garden of the Wessenbergian children’s home.
9:20 PM: Explosion of the bomb.
10:00 PM: Elser is brought to the Konstanz Border Commissariat and transferred to Munich.
November 13-14, 1939: Elser makes a full confession in the presence of Nebe (Reichskriminaldirektor) and Huber (SS-Obersturmbannführer, Regierungsrat, and Kriminalrat).
November 14, 1939: Transfer to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt/Gestapo headquarters in Berlin.
November 19-23, 1939: Interrogation.
1939-1944: Special prisoner in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Late 1944/April 1945: Dachau concentration camp—section for privileged prisoners (Kommandanturarrest).
April 5, 1945: Himmler’s directive to kill the “protective custody” prisoner Georg Elser.
April 9, 1945: Murder of Georg Elser.
Sources
In this book, I have attempted to describe Georg Elser’s life story as authentically as possible in a documentary/narrative form. Wherever dialogue or the description of thoughts and feelings has been employed, these are products of the author’s imagination. The italicized passages are all documentary; some of them have been abridged for the purposes of this story.
For reasons of privacy, all names—excluding those of historical figures and Elser’s family members—have been changed.
To reconstruct Georg Elser’s life and times, I availed myself of an abundance of archival material, essays, and books. I would like to cite here the books and documents that were particularly helpful to me during my work.
Albrecht, Ulrike: Das Attentat. Über Georg Elser und das Attentat auf Hitler im Bürgerbräukeller am 8. November 1939. Mit einem Vorwort zum Hitlerputsch im November 1923 von Hermann Wilhelm, Munich 1987.
Antoni, Ernst: KZ—von Dachau bis Auschwitz, Frankfurt 1979.
Davidson, Eugene: Wie war Hitler möglich? Rastatt 1987.
Domarus, Max: Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen: 1932-1943, Munich 1965.
Fest, Joachim C.: Hitler: Eine Biographie, Berlin 1973.
Graml, Hermann (Ed.): Widerstand im Dritten Reich: Probleme, Ereignisse, Gestalten, Frankfurt am Main 1984.
Gruchmann, Lother: Georg Elser: Autobiografie eines Attentäters, Stuttgart 1989.
Janssen, Karl-Heinz: 30. Januar: Der Tag, der die Welt veränderte, Rastatt 1988.
Majer, Gerhard: Schorsch: Der Attentäter aus dem Volk, Heidenheim 1989
Peters, Lothar: Der Hitler-Attentäter Georg Elser. Eine biographische Studie, Cologne 1987 (unpublished manuscript).
Roon, Ger van: Widerstand im Dritten Reich, Munich 1987.
Rürup, Reinhard (Ed.): Topographie des Terrors: Gestapo, SS und Reichssicherheitshauptamt auf dem “Prinz-Albrecht-Gelände”—Eine Dokumentation, Berlin 1987.
Tuchel, Johann/Schattenfroh, Reinhold: Zentrale des Terrors. Prinz-Albrecht-Str. 8: Hauptquartier der Gestapo, Berlin 1987.
Zahl, Peter Paul: Johann Georg Elser: Ein deutsches Drama, Berlin 1982.
Also helpful for my work was the television movie Der Attentäter by Rainer Erler, Bavaria Film GmbH, Munich 1969.
I have occasionally quoted from the following sources or was guided by descriptions and accounts in them. I am providing these as annotations to the chapters. All quotes in the book from German-language sources are translated by Ross Benjamin:
Chapter One: The basis of the descriptions is the testimony of the customs officer Xaver R. from October 23, 1950; see Insitut für Zeitgeschichte (IfZ), Munich, call number ZS/A 17-30.
Chapter Two: For the reports of the eyewitnesses as well as Hitler’s speech on November 8, 1936, see Domarus, Hitler. The descriptions of the Munich events on November 8, 1923, are drawn from the essay “Der Hitlerputsch” by Hermann Wilhelm in Das Attentat by Ulrike Albrecht. Davidson’s Wie war Hitler möglich? was also used as a source.
Chapter Three: Substantial portions are based on testimony of the former police detective Otto G. (IfZ, call number ZS/A 17-11). The testimony of the waitress Maria S. can also be found in the IfZ, Munich.
Chapter Four: The passages from the November 9, 1939 edition of the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten are quoted from Zeitmagazin, no. 46, 1979. Reports of the “German News Agency” are excerpted from IfZ, call number ZS/A 17-6. For the reports on the internal political situation, see IfZ, Munich, call number ZS/A 17-5. The internal political stocktaking is a summary from Ulrike Albrecht, Das Attentat, as is the cross section of reports from the foreign press.
Chapter Five: The description of the interrogation is based on the report “Der Attentäter,” Stern, May 3, 1964, as is the testimony of the landlady. References to speculations about contact between Otto Strasser and Georg Elser are based on the work of Lothar Peters, Der Hitler-Attentäter Georg Elser.
Chapter Six: Torture methods of the Gestapo are described by Johannes Tuchel and Reinhold Schattenfroh in their book Zentrale des Terrors. The interrogation transcript of Elser’s mother from June 19, 1950, can be found under the call number ZS-A 17-9 in the IfZ, Munich, as can the excerpted testimony of his brother Leonhard (IfZ, ZS/A 17-8).
Chapter Seven: All excerpted testimony of Georg Elser can be found in the copies of the interrogation transcript, preserved as a “state secret” in the files of the Nazi ministry of justice and later in the federal archives in Koblenz under the call number R22/3100. The transcripts used in this book of Elser’s testimony to the Gestapo from November 19 to 23, 1939, were first published in their entirety in the book Autobiographie eines Attentäters, edited by Lothar Gruchmann (Stuttgart 1970), which was reissued in 1989. All quotes from the interrogation transcripts of Elser’s family members are excerpted from the extensive archival material at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (call number ZS/A-17).
The historian Dr. Anton Hoch, research fellow and head of the IfZ archive until 1978, conducted years of extensive research on Elser and collected all available documents and witness transcripts. It is thanks to Anton Hoch that Elser has not been forgotten.
Chapter Eight: The report of the Landsberg prison warden from September 15, 1924, is excerpted from Joachim C. Fest’s comprehensive book on Hitler. The description of the prison conditions is based on the essay “Bewährungsfrist für den Terroristen Adolf H.” by Otto Gritschneder in the April 15, 1989, edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, as well as the article “Von guter Selbstzucht und Beherrschung” in Der Spiegel, no. 16, 1989, which describes Hitler’s situation in the Landsberg prison.
Chapter Nine: The descriptions of the assumption of power on January 30, 1933, are based on the report 30. Januar: Der Tag, der die Welt veränderte by Karl-Heinz Janssen. The testimony of the master carpenter Friedrich G., for whom Elser worked from July 2, 1934, to November 17, 1934, and then again from June 2, 1935, to September 21, 1935, is also excerpted from the IfZ archive (call number ZS/A 17-12). The oath of office is quoted from Hitler by Joachim C. Fest.
Chapter Ten: The “conspiracy theory” of the quarry owner V. was also spread in the series of articles titled Der Attentäter (Stern, May 3 and 17, 1964). The write
rs portrayed Karl Kuch, who was from Königsbronn and had immigrated to Swizerland in the ’20s, as the initiator of the attack. Kuch, who after 1933 was allegedly involved in currency smuggling and died in a mysterious car accident with his wife on Pentecost in 1939, was supposedly opposed to Hitler and friendly with Elser. This rather liberal speculation was later emphatically refuted by the historian Anton Hoch.
Chapter Eleven: Hitler’s Reichstag speech on the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, is quoted from the collection Chronik 1939, Dortmund 1988.
Chapter Twelve: The scenes in Berlin are based on transcripts of the testimony of the customs officer Xaver R. (IfZ, call number ZS/A 17-30).
Chapter Thirteen: Numbers and background information regarding the conditions and events in the Dachau concentration camp are drawn from the book KZ—Von Dachau bis Auschwitz by Ernst Antoni. The career of the SS guard L. is based on research material from the magazine Stern, which was compiled for the so-called Stern-Serie and archived in the IfZ in connection with the Elser documents.
Epilogue: The survey about Hitler, the Nazi era and its consequences appeared in Der Spiegel, no. 15, 1989. For the discussion of Elser as a resistance fighter, see the article by Claus Leggewie, “Der Mann, der es tat,” in the February 20, 1982, edition of the Frankfurter Rundschau, which is quoted in part. The quote from Ian Kershaw is from an interview in Der Spiegel, No. 46, 2011. For a detailed historical comparison between Georg Elser and Claus von Stauffenberg, see my essay “Der Mann, der Hitler töten wollte” in Cicero, Magazin für politische Kultur, Berlin, November 2009. On the debate and the design competition in connection with a memorial for Elser in Berlin, see the October 12, 2011, press release of the Berlin Senatskanzlei as well as numerous newspaper reports, among them “Georg Elser-Denkmal in Berlin,” www.spiegel-online/kultur.de, and “Denkmal für einen tragischen Helden,” www.süddeutsche.de. All schools, squares, and streets in Germany named after Elser are documented at www.georg-elser.net. Further up-to-date information can be found at www.georg-elser-arbeitskreis.de. For criticism of the memorialization of Elser, see Peter Koblank’s articles in “Mythos Elser” at www.georg-elser-arbeitskreis.de.
For interviews, advice and access to sources, I thank:
The Studienkreis zur Erforschung und Vermittlung der Geschichte des deutschen Widerstands 1933-1945 in Frankfurt am Main
The Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich
Gerhard Majer and Gertrud Schädler of the Georg Elser-Arbeitskreis in Heidenheim
The ZEIT-Archiv in Hamburg
Herr Leonhard Elser in Königsbronn
Herr Eugen Rau in Königsbronn
Frau Gabriele Göttmann in Darmstadt for her careful transcription work.
For the present English-language edition, I offer my special thanks to Ross Benjamin. I consider myself lucky to have such a detail-oriented translator. At our meetings in Berlin and New York, I particularly came to appreciate his friendly tenacity. Thanks to his work, numerous documents and passages are more comprehensible and readable. What more could an author ask for? I thank my agent Jennifer Lyons for her dedication and her excellent work in bringing the book to Skyhorse Publishing. I am grateful to the team at Skyhorse for their professionalism. They have done everything in their power to ensure that this book will find interested readers in America.
Helmut Ortner
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